A Weekend's Observations
by Namariel
Summary: Faced with the prospect of a weekend in the city with his siblings after a while of being apart, Peter fails to notice how much they really observe him. A study of his character in an England raked by a war different to the ones he knows.
1. Chapter 1

Hi! My first Narnia universe story! I hope you like it. I'll update as soon as I can fix the second chapter, written only half way through at the moment.

**Chapter 1**

"_The aorta is a hard artery, and as such is quite distensible. When the left ventricle contracts to force blood into the aorta, the aorta expands. This stretching gives the potential energy that will help maintain blood pressure during diastole, as during this time the aorta contracts passively_…. Oh _drat_! I'll _never_ remember this!" said James, running a hand through his dark brown curls, exasperated.

"Language." His roommate replied distractedly, his blue eyes traveling quickly through the page of the medical encyclopedia he held in his hands, a blur. "And volume."

"Oh, Pevensie, get over yourself, bloke." James leaned forward over the table, glaring. "I'm telling you, I'm _dead_!"

"It's merely a quiz, James." Peter replied, now lifting his blue eyes, his face schooled into careful neutrality with a hint of annoyed amusement. "And honestly, it is not that hard."

"So say you, medical genius." The other replied with chagrin.

Peter rolled his eyes, leaning back in his chair, and the sunlight that streamed in through the tall tainted glass windows of the library caught in his golden hair. James was vaguely aware of a pair of girls out of the corner of his eye, staring at the blond across the table from him.

Pevensie really didn't go anywhere unnoticed. He was too perfect to exist.

"Well, I suppose I'll have to help you." Peter said finally, smiling with honesty. "I'll read it to you, then we'll go over it together. You'll get it right."

"Being older brother is something you can't switch off, eh, mate?" James arched an eyebrow, resting his chin on his hand.

Peter smiled, his eyes averting to the side in thought. "I believe it is really not an option, for me."

"Don't you get tired of being a role model?" James drawled.

"Not at all." Peter answered, now looking at him, his smile broad and honest, bright and playful. "I actually like it a lot."

"Bookworm." Deadpanned his friend, his fine eyebrows a single straight line above his half lidded hazel eyes.

Peter sat up, resting the book on the table and leaning in conspiratorially close to his friend, a smile on his lips. "You know, when I was a kid, like during the war, my sister Susan used to make me play these supposedly fun games of hers in which she'd flip open a huge dictionary—"

"And here I was thinking maybe the _rest_ of your family was normal."

"—you have no idea." Peter chuckled, sitting back again. "Anyways—the aorta. It's the biggest artery in the body, about a thumb thick, and—"

The librarian tapped his shoulder gently. Peter turned and stood automatically, ever the gentleman. James limited his movement to the arching of a skeptical eyebrow.

"Phone, Mr. Pevensie." She said, smiling kindly up at him. James looked away, irritated. She always glared at _him_. Trust Peter to add charm to his pretty face and lay all women to his feet. It was wonder he didn't have a girlfriend yet. Or several.

Peter rushed through the library out into the hallway and picked up the receiver of the wall phone. "Hullo?"

"_Your predictability has reached preposterous heights_." An ironic voice drawled through the line.

"Oh wow, those are lots of big words there Ed, you be careful not to choke on them, eh?"

"_Susan's totally ruined you! I told you not to hang up with her __**all**__ summer_."

"Susan's the reason I got into med school, Ed." Replied Peter, smiling fondly.

"_I mean, I didn't even bother calling the dorm today. I just knew you'd be in the library_."

"Rather than me being predictable, that's just you knowing me so well."

"_I know you well enough to know you'd obsess over a __**simple quiz**_." Ed stressed, laughter in his voice. "_So I'm calling to make sure you remember to go to sleep tonight, eh dear brother?"_

"I am touched by your concern for my health, but trust me; I know how to handle it by now."

Edmund chuckled, but subsequently turned serious. "_Peter, sleep. Seriously. You're thin_."

"How do you know _that_?" Peter arched a blond eyebrow.

"_I talked to James_."

"Treason!" Peter cried playfully, and smiled apologetically at a group of people walking by that he had startled with his raised voice.

"_More like concern_." Ed replied. "_I kind of miss having you around, for all your irritating ticks_."

"Yes, I know." Peter said, ruffling his own hair and sighing. "I'm sorry I couldn't go see you last weekend like I promised, Edmund. You know I keep my promises, I just postponed it—"

"_Forget it, I know you're up to your chin with books, Pete_." Ed said gently, smiling.

"I'll go next weekend, you have my word." Peter insisted.

"_All is forgiven, my brother_." Ed said kindly, chuckling. "_Now seriously, Pete, get some sleep and start eating well. Or I'll have to go over there and slap you into shape, you see, and I don't want to be slapping High Kings._"

Peter chuckled and nodded, even though Ed couldn't see him. "Alright, Ed, you win, as always." He laughed slightly and sobered up. "I talked to Su yesterday, did she tell you she's decided to be a literature professor?"

"_She did, I think it suits her_."

"I do as well, I can picture her teaching it. She's good at that." Peter paused. "How's your history teacher this year?" Ed had become unusually fond of studying history while they were in Narnia, as a part of his training to be the perfect diplomat, and he had continued that preference now back in England. But in school he had precedents of being a troublesome boy, and now he had to struggle twice as hard to make sure everyone understood he was no longer _that_ Edmund Pevensie.

"_I think she's in love with you_." Ed drawled, and Peter could see him rolling his eyes. "_I swear on Aslan's mane, if I hear her say 'Your dear brother this or that' again I'll find a sword_."

Peter's laugh rolled rich and joyful, making Ed smile despite himself.

James was dutifully reading over the aorta again when Peter returned to the table. They went over it all again together, and Peter explained everything in easy words so it would be easier to remember. About an hour and a half later James decided it was time for supper, so they headed to the cafeteria, ate and then withdrew to their room.

"While you were out talking with your brother one of the girls from the neighboring table came asking for your name and dorm." James informed.

"Oh, no—you didn't, did you James?" Peter asked, mortified.

"I certainly _did_." James smirked. "Why, Peter, I was sure you were trying to woo them, what with you always smiling like a dork."

"I was not." Peter said firmly. "And I resent that. I do not smile like a dork."

"Get a girl already." James deadpanned. "Then they'll live you alone."

"Why would they?"

"Because you're obviously not the type double play, and you're evidently not the type to switch girls, and I bet when you finally find a girl you like you'll go through all sorts of stupid situations just to strike her as a gentleman, so she won't easily et you go."

Peter stared at him for a moment, until his fine blond eyebrow arched elegantly. "To which I enquire, would it not be out of character for me to 'get a girl already' simply to save me the trouble of turning down the girls you throw my way?"

"They throw _themselves_ your way, I just fix their aim." He paused. "Speaking of aim, there hasn't been any bombings lately in London, has there?"

"None that I have heard of." Peter answered sighing. "Thank Aslan." He added in a whisper.

"Well, this whole bloody business should be over and done with soon." James said, letting himself fall on his back, draped over his bed.

"That's what everyone said in 1939." Peter replied darkly.

"Well, I'm not lying now, Peter." James sat up, looking at his friend seriously. He knew what Peter and his siblings had been through, and knew how sensitive Peter was to the matter of the war. "After what happened in Normandy, the Nazis must be getting chills all down their spines, eh, mate?" he smiled.

"Forgive my lack of amusement." Peter said flatly, opening his book and completely ignoring James.

James looked at his friend with a vague sense of disturbing guilt, wondering if perhaps he should have kept his war enthusiasm to himself, since he was well aware of how Peter felt.

In truth, while Peter really _was_ as charming as everyone thought, he held a whole lot more layers to his character than James could ever come to understand. There was a peculiar, knowing glint to his eyes that James couldn't quite place. It was all the more disconcerting considering Peter was ridiculously innocent in lots of other things.

"Nh." James grunted, turning in the bed to look at the wall. "Sorry I asked, Peter."

Peter glanced at him but remained silent, a clear indication that he was upset. That was the trick with Peter. You knew he was upset because he didn't tell you, or he gave you a look that clearly told the matter would cease to be discussed in front of him. He had that kind of weird authority.

The next of the evening was quiet as they both dedicated to study for the quiz the next day. James fell asleep before Peter, and when he woke up the blond was taking a bath.

Over breakfast, Peter made James go over all the arteries in the body one more time to make sure he got it right. He wasn't satisfied until James could name them all fluidly.

After the quiz, James decided he would skip the next class and get some sleep.

"I know, I know, don't look at me like that!" he said, lifting his hands as if to shield himself from Peter's piercing blue eyes.

"Do as you like, but don't explain me to approve or join you."

"As if I would."

It was Tuesday, James knew Peter would be out late because he had fencing practice. Fencing was yet another thing Peter was simply superb at, being even best than the captain. Thanks to the both of them 

the team had won several championships since James and Peter's first year at University, the previous one.

"Why don't you take my car?" James asked his friend the next day's afternoon, lazily sprawled on his bed with a book open over his chest. "I don't mind."

"Thank you, James, but I can't drive all that well." Peter smiled. "And I like riding the train; gives me the chance to read quietly."

"Bookworm." Mumbled James, returning to his book.

Saturday morning found Peter Pevensie landing on the train station with his small bag, sleepy and with his blond hair tussled.

"Train rides really do nothing for your complexion." Edmund observed amused, taking the bag from his brother's hand.

Peter mumbled something about not being able to sleep because the baby the woman sitting next to him was holding up would not stop crying.

"Why didn't you move away, silly? There was empty seats, were there not?"

"Yes, but she felt terrible and I didn't want to make her feel worse."

Edmund chuckled, shaking his head. "You'll never change, Pete. You want to go to the dorm and get some sleep? Frank went home for the weekend because of his mother's birthday, so I'm all on my own."

"Ah, I think I will. You don't need my help with any homework?" he arched a brow.

Ed huffed. "I'm not twelve anymore, Pete."

"Oh, no, that was a long, long… long, time ago." The irony rolled off his lips, tinted with good willed amusement, and Ed knew his brother wasn't searching for a crack to really irk him, simply because he was Peter, and Peter never did things out of malicious intentions. Often he never even realized his words held more than the meaning he imprinted in them, and it was up to Ed and Su to clear the possible confusion.

It wasn't that Peter was naïve—although Edmund was certain his brother _was_ in more ways than a bloke like him should, and found it amusing and irking at once—it was simply that while he was good with words, Edmund had always been better, if only because his mind was darker and could see beyond the surface of things. Edmund's and Susan's sight had always been just slightly more piercing, perhaps because they were willing to beware the darkness in everyone where Peter was willing to accept it and embrace it. Diplomacy and politics had a bit of a twisted side to them, in all honesty.

It was only one of the very few, lovely parts of Peter's magnificent character that needed to be sheltered. His persistent innocence, when Edmund and Susan had long since given theirs up in hopes to safeguard Lucy's and his. And they had managed it. And when Peter left for Oxford, both had been 

worried he would collide with a world too different form the Narnia he clearly belonged to, and find it too cruel—but Aslan seemed to treasure his High King's innocence as much as his siblings, and had landed him in a shared room with the only cynical rich boy whose acid humor made him all the more appreciative of Peter's naturally giving character.

Edmund was certain it was James deliberate attitude that had ensured Peter never knowing for sure what provoked jealousy-based ill will towards him from some people. It wasn't within Peter's mind to understand that they hated him because he was good at practically anything he did—and Edmund said _practically_, because Peter had never been all that good at archery, a fact that had always been an irking matter to the High King he had been, was and would forever be—and James had passed it all off as "you can't be liked by everyone, mate, sorry."

But, Ed thought with a smirk watching his brother from the corner of his eye as Peter ran a hand through his golden strands in a—mainly hopeless—attempt to fix them, everyone that could matter to Peter liked him. The rest, who cared?

He slept like a rock while Ed sat to his desk finishing his history homework, and the younger King only woke him up for lunch, since Peter really was thinner than he had ever been, though he had always had a lithe frame.

He remembered Peter to have very light sleep when they were in Narnia, as something always happened and he needed to be up on his feet and lucid the second he was needed, but in England it was hard to rouse him, especially after such a rough train ride.

"Come on sleeping beauty." He joked, stealing the pillow from under his head, so it bonked against the mattress heavily.

"You're worse than Oreius, Ed." Peter complained as he sat up, pushing the cover that Edmund had draped over him and giving him a grateful smile.

Oreius had used to 'respectfully' snatch the covers away from the both of them when they had attempted to remain in bed after the hours he thought acceptable. Oreius also did not sleep over five hours a night, since centaurs stargazed. It had all ended the moment Peter became better than him at swordplay and threatened to stab him out of his room if he did it again. Vain threat as it was, it made Oreius respect the proper sleeping time that humans required. Peter really had a terrible temper.

"You're getting taller." The blond said as they walked towards the school's cafeteria. "You were taller than me, weren't you, Ed?"

"By a few inches." The burnet answered. "But I was lither."

"Yes, you have Dad's frame." Edmund smiled at him, delighted by the compliment, and Peter laughed.

Edmund wasn't completely unaware of the glances the other kids from school threw their way. Ed had been a horrible bully only three years ago, and his drastic change had shaken everyone. He didn't have 

many friends now, thought the ones he had he knew counted more than his previous mates. The kids didn't like getting close to this new, silent and calm Edmund Pevensie. When Peter was around it was easier to do so, since Peter was agreeable and open, and Peter always did things that much easier, but the kids felt there was something _off_ with the both of them, eyes too deep, smiles too mysterious, shared glances and silences that meant nothing to them and yet communicated something between siblings.

"You know, I'm thinking I'll go for diplomacy, Pete." Edmund said, pausing in his lunch.

Peter looked at him with curiosity. "Will you? I thought you were leaning towards teaching, too."

"Yes, well, I've been reading a little of international relations and I rather like it. And, knowing how much good a diplomat came make" he smiled, and Peter returned it immediately, since he knew just how many conflicts Ed had avoided with his swift thinking and soft tone of voice, when they were Kings of Narnia. "I thought I'd go that way. What do you reckon?"

"I think you should go for it, if you want to." Such a Peter-like thing to say, Ed mused. Never a concrete opinion when it came to personal decisions, but always the support to go after what you thought. Like the wind on your sails.

"You talked to Lucy lately? She won the Literary Contest in her school."

"She did? Lion, I didn't know! That's brilliant! But why didn't she tell me?"

"Well, you've been so busy she probably didn't want to bother you." Ed said, shrugging. "Say, we should go visit them, eh? Their school is only two train stations from here, you know."

"We'd better call them before, make sure they don't have to study—and call Dad and Mum, so they can tell the school we're going, too."

"You kill all spontaneity, you know that?" Edmund asked, his eyes half lidded and his dark brows a single straight line.

"You keep telling me." Peter grinned.

Ed grinned back, delighted to be able to spend some time with his brother and possibly also with his sisters.

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Namariel, out!


	2. Society's Circumstances

I feel like I should warn that though this time it came quick, updates _will_ be irregular.

It ended up being a longer than expected reflection on wars and society. I also surprised myself with how many intellectualists and rationalists I can quote without the need to look them up in Wikipedia. Perhaps I really am a dreadful cynic. I trust (and hope) you will manage to read until the end.

Chapter 2: Society's Circumstances.

"_God knows; I won't be an Oxford don anyhow. I'll be a poet, a writer, a dramatist. Somehow or other I'll be famous, and if not famous, I'll be notorious. Or perhaps I'll lead the life of pleasure for a time and then—who knows?—rest and do nothing. What does Plato say is the highest end that man can attain here below? To sit down and contemplate the good. Perhaps that will be the end of me too._"

"Erm, Shakespeare?"

"Plato? Shakespeare?" Peter arched an eyebrow.

"Oh, you're right. Ah, Balzac?"

"I don't think he was English."

"Oh, bother. I just don't have memory for literature."

"You used to remember a lot more when we were in Narnia." Peter replied, looking over the list of authors with mild interest.

"I had a better tutor." Ed said sighing, letting himself fall on the seat of the train across from his brother, with no little grace. "Also, my literature teacher then didn't think 'Remember, remember the Fifth of November, The Gunpowder Treason and Plot, I know of no reason, Why Gunpowder Treason, Should ever be forgot.' was a good, poetic thing."

"Oh, so he's a terrorist, is he?" Peter asked, amused. "Well remembered, by the way."

"I used to like him before, but that impression is rapidly declining."

"I'm not surprised, what if he thinks the Parliament should be blown to bits." He paused. "It was Oscar Wilde, by the way. The quote, I mean, not the Parliament."

"Oh him." Ed grinned.

Peter closed the booklet of book quotes and left it on the seat by his side. "Look, we're almost at the station." he said, smiling happily.

He did that quite a lot these days, smiling like that. Before they went to Narnia, in what he and Ed now came to recall as his darkest days, Peter had taken the habit of smiling only to alleviate Lucy's and Susan's worries. Now he was generally more open, honest about his emotions, including fears and concerns, and thus was an overall more approachable young fellow.

Still, there were some fragments, almost unnoticed bits of Peter Pevensie's character that slightly disturbed his younger brother. Edmund prided himself in knowing Peter the best, and being the only one capable of seeing through the slight fractures in his perfectly composed mask before they became cracks. He knew, for example, when he was thinking of dark things.

His eyes fell half lidded and the blue darkened. His brows got only an inch closer. His lips draw a straight, severe line. And there was a small tilt of his head to the right, when the thought were particularly unpleasant or he was particularly angered.

Like that one, just now.

That was a small, delicate gesture he shared with both Susan and Edmund. It was a way of masking his deepest layers of anger or sorrow. Peter was impatient by nature, but years of teaching himself to control his character had schooled his features to remain perfectly neutral when in the greatest aggravation. Edmund could see it clearly because he, unlike his brother, was slow to both anger and action, instead being a thoughtful, tolerant lad, who watched and learned before concluding. That was what made him such a masterful strategist, after all.

Peter's eyes shifted to him, and he sketched an easy, honest smile. "You're watching me, Ed." He said gently. "Is there something you feel you need to know?"

"What were you thinking about, just now?" Ed asked directly, because at this point in their relationship there was not beating around the bushes and coating with sugar, lest you wanted Peter to grow irritated, which was altogether counter producing, because when he was irritated Peter turned strangely sarcastic, clearly a feature learned from Edmund. Not exactly the one the King would wish his brother copied, but he settled for what he had, when it came to that.

True to their straight forwardness, Peter's smile faded. "You mind if I get back to you on that, Ed? I'm still on it myself." There was an absent expression on his eyes, and Edmund understood.

"You come back when you're ready, Pete." He said, stretching to grab the booklet and look over the list of names again, before flipping through the pages to the quotes and seeing if he somehow managed to guess at the correct authors.

Lucy and Susan were waiting at the station when they stumbled out of the train rather ungracefully, because Edmund tripped on an untied shoelace and dragged his brother down with him. Luckily, Peter had good reflexes and they didn't end up face down on the platform.

All effort out the window, though, when Lucy threw herself at the eldest Pevensie and finished up sprawled on the ground above him.

"Love hurts." Ed snickered as Susan placed a gentle kiss on his temple.

The beautiful eighteen years old pursed her full lips at his sister and brother as they sat up. Peter climbed to his feet and helped Lucy up, bringing her close to him as he slid his other arm around Susan's shoulders and kissed her forehead.

"You've grown again." The elder sister said, studying him attentively with her bright blue eyes.

"Have I?" Peter asked, blinking.

Of course he had. He grew by the minute, Peter. Trust Susan to notice every time he changed, every inch he grew. As time passed by in England he grew closer to becoming the High King of Narnia, different and yet the same. Was a star in the sky not the same, even if you traveled?

"And, how is my little writer?" Peter asked, stroking Lucy's brown hair.

"You heard?" she beamed up, delighted, grasping Peter's tweed coat.

"Of course I did! Ed told me. So what did you write about?" he asked, as he slid her bag off her shoulder and slung it over his, a custom both him and Edmund had acquired in Narnia. Susan's own bag was already over Edmund's shoulder, though it hardly had anything in it, it was so light.

As Lucy enthusiastically told Peter about her short story, the one that had earned her a literary prize in the inter-school tournament, Ed and Susan fell back a little.

There was equilibrium to it, really. Both Edmund and Susan had grown quiet over the years, both more given to thought and observation than action. Where Peter and Lucy would immediately jump to action, the other two analyzed and studied before deciding. Susan's gentle words had saved them from more than one perilous confrontation, and when Peter's usually reserved character somehow overflowed him it was always her that set his mind back on track.

Being a High King wasn't an easy thing, especially when you are barely sixteen, and a hot blooded boy. It wasn't that he was eager for war, but like any normal boy he did enjoy a good work out, and in Narnia it always proved to involve swords.

Susan , perhaps for being older, or simply for being a girl, had a different view on things that Edmund. While their assessments on character and worth generally matched, Edmund was always more open to shift his conclusions upon further observation, whilst Susan seemed to struggle with her first impressions. Admittedly Edmund had gone through a great deal more than her, of course, and he knew quite well about first impressions and second chances.

The difference between them was that Susan failed to change her first impressions, but always unfailingly accepted everyone as they were, while Edmund stubbornly persisted in accurately judging a character and acting accordingly.

He was different from Peter in the sense that while the High King treated everyone in the same open, well humored manner, Edmund kept mostly to himself, and adapted his openness and good will to his counterpart.

He had never once been able to enjoy with General Oreius the kind of easygoing relationship his brother had, because Oreius had always struck him as more cold and distant than Peter seemed to have picked up on. Of course, the Centaur's demeanor changed visibly around the blond King, as Susan had pointed out one morning.

"Maybe, Ed, he acts differently with you because you perceive him differently than Peter." She had answered gently when Edmund pointed out that the General stroked him as completely lacking sense of humor.

They sat in a café in front of a square and watched over the menu quickly. Peter knew well what each would ask, even as they read. Lucy would go for something sweet and most likely covered in sugar. Susan would get something light and simple, since she didn't eat much. Edmund would request something probably chocolate flavored.

He smiled to himself when he was proved right. He asked for tea with a cloud of milk, like his father always did.

"Whoa, wait." Edmund said, frowning. "This isn't the first time I hear about this Charles fellow."

"I agree." Peter joined in, arching a fair eyebrow. "Who is this man? And what are his intentions with you?"

"Oh, nonsense." Lucy said, sipping her tea with twinkling eyes. "He's just my friend."

"They sure start young these days, these 'friends'." Edmund evaluated.

"Oh, to be sure, I think you ought to wait a few more years, Lu."

"What next?" Susan asked, playfully rolling her eyes. "Will you challenge him to a sword match? An archery tournament? The one who wins gets the fair Queen's hand? Boys, _do_ grow up."

"Well, not everyone enjoys the attention they get, most royal sister." Edmund replied, sly. "Even if they don't act upon it. Or is it that you preserve yourself for someone in particular, eh? Maybe dear ol' James, hmm?"

"Oh, nonsense." Susan said, blushing very slightly. "James is simply a friend."

"Wait, my James? James Randall?" Peter asked, bewildered.

"What, there was another James staying in our house at Finchley last summer?"

Peter shrugged. "There were an awful lot of people staying at our house last summer. When did James start courting you, eh? How come I didn't notice?"

"Courting is a very big word, really." Susan dismissed quickly.

"To be sure, it has eight letters and two syllables." Edmund smirked. "Well, Peter, with how engrossed you were studying I'm amazed you even registered it was your birthday."

"He didn't." Lucy supplied. "I told him."

"Hey, I remembered my—don't change the subject." He caught on, frowning. "Who's Charles anyway? What's his last name?"

"What, you'll have Scotland Yard look it up? The Interpol?" Susan questioned smiling.

"Why not?" Peter sat forward, grinning. "I've heard they do a terribly good job of it. Who knows? Perhaps they are on par with Edmund's Wolf Guard."

Susan sat back, laughing lightly, and watched as Peter and Edmund discussed better ways to ensure the efficiency of the Scotland Yard by applying the Wolf Guard rules, leaning close to each other.

She had seen them lean like this as they planned out the strategy for a battle, heads bent close, discussing their tactics and positions under Oreius' constant gaze.

Similarly she had watched as Peter struggled to grasp the concept of never returning to Narnia, and had been endlessly proud as he came out of the conflict understanding that Aslan's words marked not an ending to a beautiful story, but the beginning of another.

He had shed his sorrow as one does a cape, and moved on to another, new, different life with the same earnest enthusiasm he had matched Edmund's sword in practice in the mornings at the ground in Cair Paravel.

He had become a man again. A different man, yes, but the same in his core. He would fight to save a man's life with the fierceness he had fought to defend Narnia. One could not expect him to become the same Peter from his last years in Narnia, if he lived in a completely different world and lived through absolutely different situations. He already had a head start from boys his age, what with having lived to be a grown up before. Second time around always allowed for changes, and Susan delighted herself in observing the ones in her siblings.

Later, as he helped her put her coat on, Susan had one of those recurrent thoughts that simply assaulted her when she was around her older brother.

"Say, Peter, when you finished school, did you consider joining the Army and going to war?" she asked.

The question took Peter off guard, and he blinked at her. A slow smile stretched over his long mouth. "You _would_ perceive it. I was thinking about that very same thing earlier today, on the train." He confessed. "But why do you ask?"

"I've wondered for a while, actually." She answered. "Simply because when we were in Narnia, you were such a superb warrior, and I thought perhaps you would find common ground in war."

"No, not at all." Peter answered thoughtfully. "I knew it was a possibility, but I dismissed it almost as quickly as I thought about it. I don't like this war at all, Su."

"Well, I reckon one never really likes war." She replied, tugging at his scarf to tighten it around his neck.

"I don't know." Peter said low, eyes sliding over the street uneasily. "This war… it's not right, Su."

Her sister blinked at him, confused. "You are going to have to elaborate, Peter, because I can't follow your unexpressed thoughts." She urged gently. In fact, she really could, but it was way more polite and helpful to have him lay them bare to her, so that she could help sooth his worries.

"Su, what do you think they're fighting for, over there?" he asked, blue eyes boring into hers. His sister was at a loss. Determining the exact causes of war was quite simple; Hitler needed to be put to a stop, as did Mussolini, and the Japanese needed to halt all hostilities. The answer was in fact so simple she automatically knew that was _not_ what her brother was referring to. "I phrased it wrong." He said, shaking his head. "I'm not as eloquent as Ed. What I mean to ask is, what are the soldiers fighting against?"

That didn't clear anything up, but staring at him wouldn't help him, so Susan tentatively offered an answer, hoping to spur him on. "Other soldiers?"

"Are they?" he questioned. "I don't think so. I think they're fighting ideals, pre-concepts, things that were drilled unto them. Say, for example, if you found a German boy in the street here tomorrow, would you have him killed?"

"Of course not." Susan said frowning. "Provided he's not a spy, I would be perfectly civil. He's obviously not fighting, so why would I mark him as enemy?" _Oh, I see_, she thought, understanding.

Peter caught the understanding in her eyes and nodded. "Remember what Aslan said when the Wolves offered to form a Guard for Edmund?" he asked, opening the door for her as they stepped out. "that even though some of them had served the Witch, that didn't mean they were all bad, and that we needed to learn the difference implied in individuality. Being Wolves didn't make them enemies. Being Germans doesn't either."

Susan nodded thoughtfully, pulling at her gloves.

"Su, why did you ask me if I wanted to go to War?" he asked, curious.

"Back then, Mum asked Ed and me to, um," she smiled fondly. "steer you away from that decision." She said delicately.

"Mum? She never told me anything of the sort." Peter was surprised. Only he would be, Susan thought affectionately.

"She thought maybe we would reach you easier."

"I guess…" he said slowly, thinking. "That is probably a fear every mother has. That her children will be stolen by the war like their fathers and brothers and husbands were… but I truly never gave a thought to it."

They walked in silence for a little while. Susan turned to look over her shoulder. Edmund and Lucy were following a little ways behind, seemingly giving them privacy. Edmund gestured with his head, but Susan made a motion with her hand, telling him to give them more time.

"I don't think I would survive a war like this one." Peter said unexpectedly. Susan turned to him, eyes wide.

"Come again? Haven't you survived over twenty, if my count is not off?"

"It's off, there were thirty two." He supplied, grinning.

"Oh, witty, very witty, Peter." She chided.

He chuckled. "It always comes down to the same, does it not?" he asked, looking up at the sky and adjusting the strap of Susan's bag over his shoulder. "What you mentioned earlier, 'common grounds'. I'm always looking for them, with Narnia and England, and I find a lot more than I expect. I'm always surprised, in fact."

Susan wondered if she needed to point out how potentially dangerous it could be to circulate the world in a constant haze of amazement, and immediately recognized the thought as Edmund's influence on her, consequently repressing it. A family only needed one cynic.

"I think it might be a question of morals." He continued. He glanced over his shoulder to ascertain where his younger siblings were at the moment, noticing they had spent too much time out of his line of sight.

"Morals?" Susan questioned, glancing at him. "Referring to what, more precisely?" just then she changed her mind, and signaled to Ed and Lu to join them. Ed, ever observing, noticed her look and understood.

"War, I mean." Peter said after a moment. "Morals in War. There _are_ morals in war, I presume you know." He arched an eyebrow.

"Don't try to be smart with me, Peter Pevensie." Susan warned. "If you need time to elaborate, take it, but don't go making comments."

Peter chuckled. "You can't be fooled, can you? I wasn't trying to be smart, I promise. I just got distracted. Back to morals." He reached out his hand to take Lucy's automatically. "I said before that there are common ground between England and Narnia, but not when it comes to war. Those differences were what make me shy away from the prospect of going to fight in Europe. Just to point one out, I would _never_ attack civilians. You remember how it felt like to be bombed. I would never wish that upon _anybody_, not even my cruelest enemy. In the end, it's always the children that suffer." He added thoughtfully, drawing Lucy closer as if trying to protect her from the very memory of the air raids. 

He spoke calmly, evenly, evidence of how in control of his emotions he was. Susan and Edmund realized he had given this matter quite some thought. "It's not a matter of repaying hate with hate, is it? War is a circumstance. People should never lose sight of that. The German soldiers are also boys who like listening to music and playing cards and running in the grass in a sunny morning. If you lose sight of that, you steal that man of his individuality and turn him into a thing. Now you can find yourself aiming at him, when a few years back maybe you found yourself sharing your goblet of wine. A circumstance."

"If it comes down to circumstances" Lucy said thoughtfully, looking up at her brother. "one needs to understand that people react differently to different situations. Not all can be Kings and Queen of Old and live life twice, Peter. Your grasp of things is different from that of most people. It's easier to demonize the German soldier as a creature with no feelings and family. To a young soldier it may be less impressive to kill a thing than to kill a person. It means you don't need to make peace with what you've done. Imagining that soldier's family in mourning as that of the family of the man that was wearing the same uniform as you and lays dead at your side forces things into another perspective."

Whenever it started to seem to them as thought Lucy was a child of merely fourteen and had not aged a day, the girl smacked them with her maturity. Peter often forced himself to remember that she was not his baby anymore, but a grown, responsible Queen in a girl's body, just like he was a High King in a boy's disguise.

"I think it's also a matter of society." Edmund said softly. "Has any of you read Thomas Hobbes? He said that 'man is the wolf of man'. He states that it is society that makes the man evil, and as such a man extracted from society will be innocent as a child."

"I don't exactly think I agree." Peter replied. "You're stripping man of individuality again, Ed. And you're sixteen, why are you reading philosophy?"

"I know, I don't agree either." Ed countered. "But it set me going. And about being sixteen, I shrug at you." He smirked. "Anyway, my point is the society influences man, even as it a man's fate is still decided by his own choices and decisions. Society shapes men. It teaches precepts and concepts and moral linings that he is to follow. We, as in we four, don't share those anymore and were schooled in different morals. That's what alienates you, Pete. Your High King persona clashes with a morality that you don't share."

Susan noticed how easily Edmund fell back into the diplomat from old times. It was him that struggled less with England, accepting its flow with the ease of a sailor in the waves, taking the situations as study cases and developing appropriate answers for his own questions. His language never seemed to slip back into the schoolboy, making him feel as sporting the weight of years he didn't look anymore.

"Similarly, Germany has different moral linings. I think the seeds of this war were planted by the resolution of the First World War. Germany was crushed and was not allowed to recuperate in the manner the rest of Europe did. It fell behind, it was _kept_ behind. An entire generation of youngsters grew up under the label of traitors and monsters, and of course that hate will generate more hate. What else can you expect? Have you read Thomas More? He said that when you starve and mistreat your 

people, and force them to become thieves in order to live, then what else can be thought of you as leader, but that you turn your people into criminals only to punish them? Yes, the Germans hate us. Can you blame them?"

"But then that brings us back to the question of whether they really hate us or are just fighting because they were swept into the mechanism of war." Susan replied. "No matter how you look at this, there is no simplification to be applied."

"And so we are back at square one, having drawn no conclusion." Peter sighed.

"But knowing a great deal more on philosophy and society, courtesy of Ed." Lucy grinned.

"Trust Ed to always come up with a teaching." Peter chuckled.

"Oh, nonsense." Edmund said, smiling, and copying his sisters previous statements perfectly.

They laughed lightly, and Peter passed his arm over Ed's shoulders and brought him close, ruffling his dark hair.

Like wolves in sheep's clothes, they navigated an England they barely understood, Kings and Queen in children's disguise, learning and observing a whole new life and adapting to it. New experiences brought about new reactions, new thoughts, unexpected feelings. Peter may be at a loss, but he wasn't lost, and as always he remained their own personal compass, their star over the blurred horizon. Edmund cleared the clouds for him, and Lucy was the wind on his sails.

And to Susan, they were a study on perfection.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The Gunpowder Plot of 1605, or the Powder Treason, as it was known at the time, was a failed assassination attempt by a group of provincial English Catholics against King James I of England and VI of Scotland. The plot intended to kill the king, his family, and most of the Protestant aristocracy in a single attack by blowing up the Houses of Parliament during the State Opening on 5 November 1605.

That is what the quote Edmund does at the beginning refers to. Edmund also quotes and speaks of Thomas Hobbes and Thomas More, which I trust you will google or look up in Wikipedia? Long biographies, you see.

The first quote does indeed belong to Oscar Wilde, one of my personal favorites when it comes to quotes. Honore de Balzac was in fact French, Peter was right. Shakespeare would not quote Plato because he was not an extremely cultured fellow, as it goes, and that's what Peter questions.

The Interpol took such name in 1956, so that's an intended anachronism simply because the International Criminal Police Commission was waaaaaay too long.

I hope I didn't bore you.

Namariel, out!


	3. Paths of Life

Paths of Life

"Isn't it fitting, that after not seeing our faces for four months, when last we come together it should rain?" Susan asked impatiently, staring at the rain with her arms crossed.

They had momentarily taken shelter under a building's roof, bunched together in the sidewalk.

"Who wants to play hide and seek?" Peter asked, grinning broadly, remembering how it had all started with a rainy day in the country and four bored, stranded children.

"There's hardly any hiding places, Peter." Susan replied, turning to give her brother a pointed stare.

"You do what you can with what you have." Peter replied wisely. "Or otherwise buy it done."

"How about we pull out a dictionary and have a good old fashioned Susan-like fun?" Ed teased.

"Oh, to be sure, there _must_ be some grave quest we must take over—anything. Quick, Ed, get us something. Did they ever find the Holy Grail? Get me a horse, I'll set out _at once_."

"I'll ask—I think I saw a stable, back in the road." Ed said, motioning to run out into the rain.

"Oh shush, you two." Susan snapped irritably.

"Come, Su, see the fun in it." Peter said, laughing lightly. He was leaning against the wall, Lucy leaning her back against his front, his hands on her shoulders. "I can't feel any sort of aversion to rain, really."

"It's not aversion, per se." Susan replied. "I simply don't wish to catch my death by going under the rain in the middle of winter."

"So don't." Ed grinned. "We're in autumn anyway."

Susan didn't dignify that with an answer.

Peter glanced at her, his smile fading. Lucy, keenly aware of his silence, looked up at him. She knew how concerned Peter was about Susan. Their older sister was beginning to drift further away from them, Lucy knew, and though she didn't quite understand her reasons, she believed Susan would come around. It was just a stage, a momentary distance, something that would fade like smoke in the wind.

Lucy could not come to believe that she would deliberately not choose them over somebody else, even as several times they had not been able to meet because she had prior engagements with her friends. Lucy didn't particularly care for Susan's friends, for she thought them quite silly; she had seen how they looked at Peter and Edmund while in the house, giggling and whispering amongst themselves. Lucy could only wonder if they did the same for all boys, or only detected some particular mystery in her brothers.

They were growing. Their lives would naturally lead them down different roads. It was an unavoidable truth. Lucy knew she wouldn't always be able to tackle Peter to the ground whenever they met. When she had told Edmund about it, her brother had said that as it drew them apart, life would eventually bring them together again. It was gravitational force; nothing could keep them apart.

Peter was the first one to be swept away by life. He had gone to Oxford, away to University, far from home and school, grown into an adult. Though there were of course some streaks in him that Lucy recognized as their childish games, Peter was indeed a grown man of twenty years, and as deeply rooted and unchangeable as his character was, his demeanor had changed greatly in the last two years.

"I see." She said with a slight smile, remembering their childhood game.

"What do you see?" Peter asked immediately, almost automatically.

"I see a thing."

"What kind of thing?"

"I see something big and wet." She grinned.

"Do you see _England_?" Edmund ventured, amused. Peter chuckled.

"Hints, Lu?" Susan asked.

"I see it is made from stone."

"Do you see Peter's head?" Ed smirked.

"I think she sees your face." Peter retorted, grinning. Lucy laughed out loud.

"I see it is in the middle of something else."

"Do you see an egg's yolk?" Edmund drawled, his wit working faster than his mind.

"Stop making wild guesses!" Susan reprimanded, smiling despite herself.

"A stone egg?" Lucy mused, frowning slightly.

Edmund suddenly started, realizing what he had been about to say. Dirty jokes was something he had grown quite accustomed to in school with the other boys, and though they weren't a common occurrence of his, sometimes his mouth ran away without him.

Peter and Susan's glares were matched, but Lucy didn't seem to pick up on the dirtiest streak of Edmund's mind. It took years of knowing him to know when he was about to get his foot in his mouth about certain things.

"Hints, Lu?" Peter asked, still looking at Ed with an arched eyebrow.

"Um, I see it is tall and it has wings."

"Is it the square's statue?" Susan asked suddenly, looking in front of them to the square.

"It _is_!" Lucy said happily, shaking Susan by the arm. Her older sister indulged in a small smile.

Susan did not, however, indulge in further pursuing the game. That managed to completely darken Edmund's frame of mind, already quite bitter when it came to Susan, and subsequently thrust Peter into one of his few and far between, but not for that less memorable, moods. With two young men and one young woman in near temper tantrums, Lucy was left to pick up the wreckage.

Scowling, she fastened her eyes on the wooden bench across from them on the square.

Hours later, as Susan lay asleep on her bed, Lucy sneaked out of their room, raced down the hallway to the next door and slipped in quickly.

She jumped on the closest bed, squealing.

"Oof! Lu! You're heavy!"

In the other bed she could hear Peter's chuckle. Ed maneuvered around under the bedcovers and finally managed to sit up, grinning broadly. His teeth were very white in the darkness of the room, and his eyes twinkled.

"This is assault, you know." He said. "And it demands revenge!" he lunged at her, tickling her savagely. Lucy tried to squirm away, but was too busy laughing.

"Alright, alright, enough." Peter said, laughing. "You'll wake the entire hot—" a pillow crashed against his face. "Oh, I see. So that's how it is."

A fluid movement later, his covers lay in tangled folds in his bed as he threw himself over Edmund.

"No fair! Lu started it!" Edmund said, gasping for breath.

"I can't attack a woman, Ed." He replied logically.

Edmund shoved him, and Peter lost his balance. He snatched up the covers and tumbled off the bed, landing in a sprawled mess on the carpet, his right leg still bent over the bed, his head bumping noisily. A second later Lucy's head collided with his stomach, cutting off his breath.

"Damn, he's right—you're heavy." He gasped.

But he was still smiling, even as he pulled himself up and straightened his pajamas, that had climbed up his abdomen to his chest.

He moved back to lean his back against the wall, stretching his long legs. Lucy climbed up to the bad and laid down flat on her stomach, her chin on her folded arms. Edmund laid back down, staring at the ceiling.

The silken silence fell over them like a comfortable cloak, filled with unvoiced words. They were all thinking the same. Slightly awkward at the thought, Peter net his left leg and scratched needlessly over his knee.

"She's going to keep growing apart." Edmund said finally, whipping his siblings with his best diplomatic, unemotional voice. He was stating a fact.

Peter sighed. Faced with the spoken fact, he could not further ignore it. Doing so this long had been childish anyway; it was about time they talked about it.

"What are we going to do when she's gone?" Lucy asked quietly.

"When she's gone," Peter said calmly. "we will miss her. And we will insist, like it's expected of us, that we keep in touch, and we will continue to care for her and try to understand her."

"That's already quite beyond us." Edmund said dryly.

"Ed." It was a single word, two letters, delivered quietly but severely, carrying enough command in it to force Edmund into silence. And a little shame. He didn't need to say 'she's our sister' because it hung, painfully sharp, above them. It was like breathing spicy air, painful in every breath, searing its way down the windpipe and hurting their throats, landing heavy on their lungs.

Lucy shifted and rested her forehead on her arms, sighing. "I miss her _already_."

"Because we lost her already." Edmund said flatly. "Peter, don't—I'm too angry." He snarled at his brother when Peter moved his hand, looking at him sharply. Restless in his anger, too comfortable with his siblings to even attempt to mask it, he shoved the covers away and flew out of bed, pacing the length of the room. They needed to talk about this now; it was the time.

Peter sighed, rubbing his right temple. "We can't keep her. She's not ours to keep. She's her own person."

"She's going to Cambridge." Edmund nearly snarled. "_Cambridge_."

"Lion, Ed, it's _her_ choice." Peter said, forcing his long fingers through his sandy hair.

Edmund paused in his walking, and slowly turned to him. "She used to listen to you." He said carefully.

"Yes, well, I used to command a Centaur into battle three times a year, too." Peter replied, folding his long legs. "Things change."

"So you're not going to do anything about this?"

Peter spread his hands, smiling faintly. "Do what, Ed? Order her to go to Oxford? To what point and purpose? You can't will it to rain, Ed."

Edmund seemed as though he was going to say something else, but he shook his head, shoulders sagging.

"She'll come around." Lucy said, looking up firmly. "She's intelligent."

"Undeniably so, but that doesn't have anything to do with this." Peter said, sighing and pulling himself up to sit in the edge of the bed, his hand between Lucy's shoulder blades. "This is about faith. Susan is highly rational, and faith doesn't usually come easy to highly rational people."

"How can you possibly deny something you saw with your own eyes, if you are so rational?"

"I don't know, but if anyone can, it's Susan." Ed grunted.

Peter flopped back on the mattress, sighing audibly.

They were engulfed in a thick, stilling silence.

"It's late." Edmund said quietly after a while. "You should go to bed, Lu." His tone was gentle and calm.

Peter recognized that as Edmund's expression of his desire to confront his brother privately. He closed his eyes, knowing this evening would come to a dark end, as Lucy sat up reluctantly. She bent quickly to press a kiss on her older brother's forehead, and rushed over to give Edmund one as well on her way to the door.

It clicked in the silence that followed her disappearing.

Holding tight reigns over his anger, Edmund crossed the room to the high backed chair and sat there, hands on the armrests, face in shadows.

"Let's agree to disagree, Ed." Peter said gently, in a mostly hopeless attempt to appease his brother's indignation.

"That's not enough anymore, Peter. You've been ignoring this well past its due time."

"I'm not her father." Peter said firmly, sitting up. "I told her what I thought. She disagreed. We fought. I'm not going to go through that again because you're not mature enough to understand that I'm not _your_ father, either."

The words left his lips before he could stop them and weighted down over the both of them like cement. Too late to take them back.

In for a penny, in for a pound. Peter sighed.

"You keep saying I'm the High King, Ed. You keep saying people used to listen to me. So do it. Listen to me. Let it rest. Let her go away. She'll come back to us. I believe that. And I like to think you believe in me."

Edmund held himself still as a statue for a second, breathing in and allowing his anger to leave him with every breath he exhaled. Fury directed at Peter never lasted long. It was like the waves of the ocean crashing ineffectually against the rocks of a cliff, never strong enough to move them from their place. It only caused them both pain.

Ed swallowed and got to his feet, slowly walking back towards the window. "Don't you miss the way things were done at your every order in Narnia?"

Peter allowed a small chuckle. "I rather like the challenge of not having that."

"Well, _you_ didn't have to go through puberty _twice_."

Peter laughed out loud then, and Ed faked being appalled. "I am serious, sir!" he growled, picking up a pillow and slamming it down on Peter's flat stomach. His brother curled protectively, still laughing, and Edmund proceeded to slam him several times more, until Peter made use of his larger frame to twist him and tangled him in the covers and sheets.

"There, kid." He said, gasping and tossing his head back to shake his hair from his eyes. "Now sleep."

But they both lay in their beds, wide awake, for hours. The loss of Susan's company crushed on them, almost pressing them to their mattresses, turned vividly real by their words once they were finally uttered.

It wasn't true that if you did not speak of something it was not real. But their previous reluctance to discuss it had allowed them to hold onto a small thread of hope, perhaps in vain, that she would come around and prove them wrong.

Peter fell asleep around four in the morning.

When the sun rose and the sky turned from velvety blue to pink and orange, the night yielding to the day, it caught Ed sitting in bed, staring at his hands in his lap.

Of all of them, Peter had been the one to whom England had been harshest.

Valiant. She could be valiant wherever she was.

Just. He could be just in every aspect and space of his life.

Gentle. She could be gentle in all places at all times.

But… how could one be _magnificent_… in a place where greatness was more often than not associated to money and wealth, them being things Peter lacked? He was magnificent to his own little private audience; and with each passing day he drew in someone else, to the point Ed was certain that should he choose to lead the country he would do so successfully.

Was there a place in modern day England for an idealist? Peter had chosen to separate himself from war, instead dedicating his life to saving the wounded and ill. He thought the last thing he wanted to do was inflict damage, and Ed fully understood his heart, but he wondered if perhaps Peter would not have found his place easier in the throws of battle, where his mind was crystal clear and his path a confusing blurred line in blowing dirt.

Peter had always excelled at making hard decisions. He would be a great doctor. He would have been a great commander. Just like he was great in everything he did. Because he had that kind of innate talent and the force of will sufficient to give a tornado a run for his money.

Ed glanced at his brother. The golden light of the sun spilled over his elegant features like liquid honey.

The High King had appeared lost, disoriented, during the first few days of their returning to England.

But with each passing day he understood, and he accepted. And he found a place and a mission for himself.

Ever since, Peter had never appeared lost or confused, or even regretful. His faith led him, his heart supported him, his will maintained him.

Ed let himself fall on the bed, his eyes falling closed. He breathed in deep, and a smile played on his lips.

What was he doing, worrying about Peter? He was the one who struggled less with who he was. He went with the flow, riding the top of the wave that was life, and he took what he got with open arms.

Peter was fine. He would be fine. His nature protected him, shielded him. It made others do that as well.

And then, he was an idealist. So what? He had been that back in Narnia and he had survived that experience, hadn't he? Ed had protected him there, as he would do now, for the rest of their lives. So Susan was not there to help him in that anymore. So what? He would do the task himself.

_Everything will be alright_, Peter said, and Ed believed him, because he could do nothing else but believe in Peter.

Everything would be alright.

Indeed.


	4. Sunset Day

Sorry it took so horribly long! Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Sunset Day

"…up already!" Peter's voice startled him, and a hand snatched the covers he was curling under.

"Ugh, four more hours."

Peter laughed. "C'mon, Ed, it's already past eight."

_Meaning? You fell asleep four hours ago and I did two hours ago. Give me a break_.

But a hand grasped the front of his shirt and an arm slid under his shoulders and his brother sat him up forcefully.

"I'll dress you myself if I have to." The blond warned, withdrawing his hands when Ed blinked blearily. "Don't think I won't."

Ed mumbled something unintelligible—perhaps luckily so—and pushed himself off the bed to standing, if barely, position.

Peter was buckling his belt, his shirt still unbuttoned. He glanced at younger brother, a smile playing over his long mouth. "Should I dress you?"

"Shut up. Give me my bag."

Peter laughed, and grabbed the green bag from the couch and gave it to him.

"You're really not a morning person."

"It's your fault." Ed said. He wasn't sure _what_ was Peter's fault exactly—that he hadn't slept until dawn or that he was most definitely not a morning person—but seeing as Peter always thought everything was his fault anyway, he didn't feel the need to explain. "You're grotesquely happy in the mornings. It's disgusting."

"Well, I certainly like to hear your good opinions of my character." Peter teased, easing the suspenders of his pants over his shoulders. "Will you throw something on already so we can go down and have breakfast like sensible people? I don't favor the idea of dragging you out of here half naked. I will if necessary, of course."

Edmund grumbled something and tossed his balled up pajama shirt at his brother's general direction. It hit him on the face, and Peter laughed out loud.

It was best to leave Edmund to his morning mood for the time being, so Peter slipped on a sweater and left the room. He knocked on his sisters' bedroom door and waited to be let in.

Susan opened it, still holding her hair up in one hand. "Come in. You can help Lucy find whatever it is she lost—she's been turning furniture like crazy."

Peter closed the door behind himself as Susan walked back to the mirror to finish with her hair. Lucy was kneeling in the floor looking under her bed.

"What are you looking for, Lu?" he asked, sitting in the bed.

"My red hair ribbon." Lu said, frowning. "I can't find it anywhere."

"That? You silly thing—you gave it to me." He arched his eyebrows, searching in the pocket of his pants.

"What? Why?"

"Good luck for one of my tests I believe, a few months back. I left it in the room, I'll fetch it for you."

When he entered their room Ed was already back asleep, sprawled over his bed above the covers. Luckily he had finished dressing, except the shoes, so Peter wasn't annoyed.

He went to his suitcase, unzipped the inner pocket ad found the ribbon exactly where he knew he'd put it. Peter never lost things, let alone someone else's _burrowed_ things, and Lu's were things he treasured specially. Putting it carefully in his pocket, he sat on the edge of Ed's bed and grasped his shoulder gently.

"C'mon, Eddie. Wake up. Breakfast's ready."

Ed mumbled in his sleep and blinked sleepily. "Not hungry."

"You're always hungry, Ed. You're sixteen."

He managed to get Edmund to sit in bed and tie on his hoes, then almost handed him a sweater and grabbed both their coats, steering him out the door. Susan and Lucy met them on the hallway.

"Here it is. I got 98 of 100 points in that test, by the way." He smiled dazzlingly.

Lucy beamed at him, allowing Susan to brush back her hair and tie the ribbon on her head, making a small delicate bow a little to the right.

Once they were presented with their generous breakfast Ed's mood lightened up considerably. He was almost conversational by the time Peter sat back on his chair, sipping his coffee, his hunger taken care of.

"Do you _have_ to go today?" Lucy asked, slightly pouting.

"I'm sorry, Lu." He said, shaking his head. "I can't skip the Anatomy class. I already did that twice this year, remember?"

"For my birthday and when mom was sick." Ed explained.

"And we can't go skipping class ourselves, either." Susan said, sipping her glass of cold water. "You know that."

"But we haven't spent more than two days together in months."

"It's not far for summer, Lu."

"We're three months into _autumn_." Ed arched an eyebrow.

"Well, one more month for winter and spring and then—"

"Then you stay in Oxford to study for fifteen days, then another fifteen days to finish some off essay, and if we're lucky we'll see you before school starts again."

Peter scowled. "Did I do that last year?"

"Yes." Lucy and Ed stated together.

"Well, I gather you need to dedicate time to your studies—but really, a few weeks of vacation won't kill you." Susan said.

Peter gave a long suffering sigh. "I must cave to my family's demands."

The train was scheduled to leave at two o'clock in the afternoon. They'd be in Ed's school around four in the afternoon, and Peter's train back to Oxford would pick him up at six. He'd be in the campus at seven in the morning, with barely enough time to bathe and brush his hair and teeth before rushing to Anatomy.

It was tight, but fortunely the trains were like clockwork in their schedules.

There was a target circle in the small town and they taught archery. Lu and Ed were thrilled at the idea of visiting it, as much as Susan protested—it was childish, she argued, pointless—and Peter, whose everlasting duty was deciding divergences, was torn.

It was a hint, and a harsh one at that. Peter knew that while Lu's intentions were pure and she meant only to have fun, Ed's own reasons were far from being similar. Susan had always been the best archer. She didn't _want_ to practice archery. And Ed would push, shove, needle and stab until he was satisfied she was either back or completely and hopelessly lost.

He set his jaw, his blond brows drawing together and down. "No." he said with a finality that startled all three of his siblings. Susan wasn't the only one in need of boundaries, it seemed, and if Ed was willing to demonstrate he was going for forceful negotiations, then the High King would have to make an irrefutable statement of where the line would be drawn.

The flash in Edmund's eyes revealed he had hit the nail. Peter's gaze sharpened, blue shifting to the bottomless depths of the ocean, intent on transmitting the message that defiance to his authority would be dealt with swiftly and harshly.

Edmund relented. Not because he thought Peter was right, certainly not by any chance, but because he knew Peter was higher in rank and was it in the undulating sands on the Narnia shores or was it on a small town lost in the English landscape, he was the High King and ruled over him. He owed him, if not blind obedience—thought certainly, should Peter request it, he would give it—at least some measure of compliance.

Archery being out of the question, they instead decided to walk around the park for the morning. Regaining his good mood at the feeling of the cold but flowing wind on his face and the life of the park with all the families and children running around, Peter was soon smiling. His moods were never lingering.

Ed walked at his side silently, not sulking but not too far from it, and Peter knew he was turning something in his mind. He chose to let him work it over and reveal it when he was ready, never one to force people, and focused on Lucy's back ahead of him as she talked animatedly with Susan about something they, the boys, were not supposed to hear.

Lucy and Susan sat on a stone bench and the brothers walked a little more, allowing them to have their moment.

Ed sat on another bench, hands shoved deep into his pockets, and stared at the gravel between his shoes. Peter stood, enjoying the wind, in front of him. He lifted his face a little and closed his eyes, pleased.

"If you won't, can't I?" Ed asked quietly, and Peter's eyes snapped open in shock. "You used to trust me for these kinds of things before."

Peter looked at him in disbelief.

"Is that what this is about?" he asked.

"Well I should expect it's about _Susan_—but that _does_ bother me."

Peter stared at him. "Go ahead, then." he said gently. "Tell me."

Ed looked at him. "I don't have anything to say."

Peter laughed. "You guilt trip me and now you get shy? You're remarkable, Ed."

His brother scowled.

"Come now, Ed." Peter said, tilting his head, his eyes warm. "I go to you for everything. I ask you even when I'm going to buy a _shirt_. When have I not trusted you? _Edmund_." He sat down by his brother's side, shoving him slightly with his shoulder. "Silly boy. It's not out of distrust that I keep you from confronting Susan. It's for your own sake, so you won't say hurtful things that you will regret. Ed, I can't protect Su anymore. Let me protect you at least."

Ed smiled slightly, looking away to the trees. "You just can't turn yourself off, can't you?"

He didn't need to be protected. He barely ever had—he had turned into an adult the very first time he had spoken to Aslan, never to return to childhood. But it was a mutual need.

Peter was, by nature and definition, a guardian. Far from Narnia, he guarded his siblings. Lost Susan, he still had Ed and Lu, and he was willing to fight for them to the last drop of his blood.

The idea of Peter's blood being shed for any reason made Ed shiver and he faced his brother, frowning. "Don't go doing anything stupid, Pete."

The blond looked at him very surprised. "I suppose there's an entire reasoning behind that recommendation, and I trust someday you'll let me hear it?"

"Just don't."

"There's nothing stupid to do." Peter shrugged. "You don't need to worry. The only things I'll be fighting for the next few years is exam related desperation and the dreadful Oxford weather." He considered for a moment. "Maybe the Cambridge fencing team, sporadically."

Ed smiled.

The train station was quite deserted when they arrived. Apparently not a lot of people traveled on Sunday. Peter supposed he could understand that, considering most people ruled their schedules by those of the Church and its masses. One would not want to be away for the afternoon mass, when one slept in late through the morning one.

While Peter was somewhat convinced that Aslan was indeed the Lord, and thus worship to Him was the same as worship to the Lion, Mass made him awkward. The Christians, whether Catholics or Protestants, were overall too ritualistic for his tastes. Not feelings as though he shared in their beliefs, he had given up going to church altogether eventually.

Edmund had engaged in a more active search of his own. Patient scholar as he was, he searched the school's library still, his mission that of finding Aslan's footprints in the different religions throughout the world. The search was for himself, perhaps for Lu and Peter's benefit as well, but certainly it did not hold any career hopes. His faith simply consisted of more tangible signals, things that his siblings didn't seem to require, especially in Lu's case.

Peter was crouching down, tying a card with his name to his suitcase just in case, though if possible he would keep it with him, when he felt Lu leaning her back against his. He smiled over his shoulder, acknowledging her, and continued to do his work.

" I'm going to fell so lonely." She said sadly.

Peter paused. "Don't say that, Lu." He murmured. "You know you're not alone. Not ever."

"There's a difference between being alone and feeling lonely." She replied, once again discarding her childish mask and moving away from him, straightening.

Peter stood, tightening the scarf around his neck almost compulsively, like her distance made the cold around them that more biting. He didn't say anything, his lips a tight line.

Lucy looked at him, studying his features. "Are you angry?"

"Yes." he ground out. Lucy had the unique quality, exclusive privilege to her, to be able to dig deeper into Peter's mind than anyone else to find, and tear out, the truth he hid. "And I don't want to be angry anymore, Lu." he sighed. "I wish I could give up." He smile wryly.

Lucy beamed up at him. "It's because you can't that we love you so much, Peter."

He laughed gently. "Only you could possibly love a stubborn rock-headed brother."

Lucy shrugged playfully. "I have two."

Peter leaned forward and enveloped her in a tight, warm hug. He rested his cheek on top of her hair, and smiled slightly at Ed, when he glanced at them. Ed returned the smile, nodding, and reopened the book that lay forgotten in his lap. Susan, by his side, was flipping through a newspaper without actually reading it.

He would have time to talk to Ed alone later. They had the train ride ahead of themselves, and Edmund called regularly to talk to him through the phone. Lucy's school did not allow such a liberal use of the phone lines, and she rarely had the time to sit down and write a letter.

"We love you, Lu." he said against her ear, hugging her tighter. She grasped the cloth of his coat in his back, tense. "As long as we exist our love is always with you. We're not leaving you alone."

She nodded so gently he wouldn't have felt it, hadn't her head been pressed against his chest. He didn't need to say who was with her; Peter, Aslan, Ed. Any of them. All of them.

She squeezed him tighter one last time, before taking a deep breath and pulling away. Her eyes were calm and her face relaxed.

"Make sure you remember to sleep. And eat. You're skin and bones."

"I am _not_." He mumbled, slightly aggravated, and picked up his case from the ground. "You are a worrywart."

Lucy gasped in faked shock, and slapped his arm. "Such language with a lady, sir!"

Peter smiled. "Do forgive me, my lady—my mouth runs away without me." He bowed his head gallantly, a graceful movement that caught the eyes of a young woman standing nearby and made her stare at him. Lucy had the childish impulse to throw her arms around his neck and kiss his cheek for ascertain of claim—and quickly shoved it over. She was not small enough to pull that off, and while Peter would laugh about it and promptly forget it, Edmund would never let her live it down.

The platform man blew his whistle. Last chance to board the train. Peter glanced at Lucy one last time, concerned. "Should I stay?"

That was a common question. He always asked her; and she always said no—often threw a 'your out of your mind!' look his way, just for good measure.

This time, though, she just looked at him gratefully and shook her head. He loved University, he loved his career. The thought of him leaving it behind just for her was equally touching and deeply disturbing.

Too selfless. Almost dangerously so. You can't throw away your life for someone else's, damn it!

She would have to talk to James—ask him to take Peter out more, help him make a circle of friends outside his family. It would hurt, but Peter needed some fresh air with no worries and pain, no shared memories of a land he couldn't go back to.

Lucy often thought that would be healthy for him. She had friends in school. Lively girls she simply loved—Jenna, Lizzie, Cate and Rosalie. She was nearly as happy laughing with them as with her siblings, though of course in different ways. Edmund had his group of old accomplices, who now saw him as a goodie-two-shoes, but still stubbornly kept to him, making each boring day slightly brighter.

Peter had James—and James was a handful to have—but the other people from University seemed to be pale to him, perhaps lacking in interest. Lucy knew that couldn't be true. There had to be out there one who could match Peter's pace, he just needed to see them. He wasn't looking hard enough.

That thought struck her as terribly condescending—Peter _knew_ what he was doing, always, and if he did not search then he did not want to search.

Lucy sighed, shaking her head, and caught a glimpse of Peter's blazing golden hair as he leaned out the window to wave at them. Susan rolled her eyes, embarrassed, and Lucy waved with her entire arm, smiling broadly.

"Lucy!" Susan reprimanded. "Behave! People are staring."

For a brief moment she considered saying 'let them!' like Peter would or 'so? Not my problem' like Ed would.

She nodded, as the train slipped away in the platform, and let herself fall on the bench next to her sister.

A weekend drawing to an end. She knew, as well as she knew the snow was white, that as soon as he had ten seconds to spare Peter would call her to check in. He would do it a few hours after Edmund, and then call him—to ask if he thought Lucy was alright.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

One more chapter to go, the train ride, and then we're done.

Sorry it took so long to update, University has been complicated. I'll try to update more quickly this time. Thanks for reading!

Namariel, out!


	5. The Relativity of Truth

The Relativity of Truth.

Edmund blinked and breathed in deep, stretching slightly. He lifted his head from the seat to look at his brother across the compartment. Peter was looking at him, his hands laced in his lap, and Ed could tell he had been waiting for him to wake.

He sat up, feeling like the compartment was too small for Peter's presence, which stretched and dominated everything. He could feel his deep blue eyes fixed on him, and these were the occasions in which Peter scared him, because his eyes took on an unfathomable depth that reminded him if the velvety abyss of Aslan's feline eyes.

Even as knowing that Peter's character amounted to two lives of learning and living, Edmund sometimes thought that his mind was foreign even to those lives. Like he had been given some sort of ancestral knowledge, a gift of understanding that was different from his, in a sense that was deeper and purer.

"There _is_ pain." Peter said slowly, and Edmund had to keep from flinching. "In the first few years after we met Caspian, I thought it would consume me, the—_sheer_, incomprehensible agony that I associated with Narnia. I thought it would destroy me. There was no way out of it, no escaping it. I breathed it like I breathed air, it shone down on me with the sun and floated up to me with the evening fog. It looked back at me from you and Lu, like a slap every morning."

Edmund flinched this time, and Peter looked up sharply, snapping out of his musings. "No." he said softly, smiling at his brother. "Don't be hurt. I don't tell you this to hurt you, or scare you. I tell you this because I deliberately withheld it from you and now I see I shouldn't have. Because if I had told you, you wouldn't be going through this now."

Edmund stared at his brother, brows slowly going down. "You were in pain…. And I never knew?" he murmured.

"Oh, you knew… you just didn't know the full extent of it."

"Why?"

Peter shrugged. "It was enough I was feeling it on my own. I loathed the idea of dragging you down with me. I had the comfort of knowing you and Lu were adapting much better than me, at least."

"I _hate_ it when you do that." Edmund growled. "You don't let me share any of the bloody weight. What am I here for, then?"

Peter moved his head gently in acquiescence of Edmund's reproach, silently recognizing that his attitude was mistaken.

"Tell me." the younger boy's words were gentler now, charged with love and concern. "Tell me now, at least."

Peter smiled, a stretch of his lips with no feeling behind it, a mock of a reassuring gesture to his brother. Edmund didn't fall for it and the smile faded quickly. Peter knew he was in deep waters when it came to hiding things from his brother, especially things like his own frustrations or hurts, because Edmund would feel betrayed at not being allowed to help. And he would secretly think he wasn't trusted.

"There is not much more than what was already said." He said quietly. "The pain of abandoning Narnia wrapped me like a cloak, impenetrable like the dragon's crystal cocoon, and it wouldn't leave me. It went with me everywhere. The first two years were like a haze, a blur of emptiness. I tried to function for mom and you, and I'm sure I appeared to do so well, but I had to force the emotions to break through a wall of numbness that quite frankly terrified me."

"I can't believe you didn't tell me!" Ed hissed, pale.

"Ed, please." Peter said softly. "I didn't tell you and I never would have told you, but I need to do that now because I know it was a mistake. If you knew what I was going through then—what Susan and I were going through—and if you knew what decisions we took you'd understand why we're going different ways in life and why I can't do anything to help her."

Edmund sat very still.

"Ed, the—"Peter was hesitating with his tongue and that scared Edmund more surely than anything else. Peter _never_ fumbled with words. He took a long pause, ordering his thoughts, and at last the idea broke through. "Courage, Ed, doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, 'I will try again tomorrow, I've survived this, I am ready for what comes next'. And I learned that not in Narnia but after Narnia, while I struggled to adjust to England. I used to lay awake at night staring at the ceiling and counting your sighs and I knew that the only way for me to go on living in London was accepting that Narnia was a dear part of me, a _beloved_ part of me yes, but not all of me. Just a part. And it took me the good part of two years to understand that and accept it, and I may have looked fine to you, but I was screaming all the way down to the bottom." the words came easier now, more fluidly. They were heartfelt, pulled from the deepest parts of him, and those were the parts of him Edmund feared, because he couldn't reach him there. There, he was alone. "There wasn't anger, though. Never anger. Sorrow, and melancholy, but not anger. Sadness is a much more difficult emotion to assimilate than fury, you know. It goes deeper. But, eventually the pain subsided, and I started seeing London as London and not as Not-Narnia. London has its own charms and quirks, and I do dearly love England. It's different in ways that I enjoy immensely. The pain, that wound, I accepted it, and I grew around it in the same way a tree grows around a knot. I took it in, and kept going." He paused, searching for something else, and Edmund felt the sudden urge to be closer to him, comfort him somehow.

Peter was never one to be pampered, always assuming the role of the father figure, of the comforter, the leader, the grown up. Sitting down next to him and slipping an arm around his shoulder to bring him down to a hug seemed awkward, only once it was done, and Peter shivered, it wasn't awkward at all. Edmund would never come to grasp just how much anguish he'd dealt with on his own, unable to share it with anyone, and the thought that he couldn't take even a fraction of that pain hurt him. Peter was a creature of great depths and his emotions run deep, rooted in places Edmund couldn't begin to comprehend. He felt in different ways than him, mourned silently and cried with dry eyes.

He swallowed and Edmund held him closer. But Peter was alright, now, and with a small laugh, he disentangled himself from his brother's embrace.

"I'm all done mourning, Ed." He said honestly, and Edmund felt a twang in his chest and breath came easy again. If Peter was to admit he was still in pain, he would leap from his seat to the window, pull the emergency stop chord, jump off the train dragging his brother back to the small city, call his sisters and lock them all together in the room at the hotel until Peter declared he was fine and they believe him.

"But what I wanted to explain is, there are different ways to mourn a loss. It all gets down to a personal choice. I took in my hurt, accepted it, grew with it and moved on with the certainty that once I was over that precipice in my life, I could take anything that came my way. I decided to be a doctor because I can't be a leader in the way England needs to be led, because my views are too different. But as a doctor I can help a lot. I can do good. I can save lives and that's what I want to do. This was my choice. Learn and live." He stopped for a moment, breathing in. "Susan… made a different choice. Faced with my same problem, she decided to handle it differently, and I don't judge her—though it hurts me." he hesitated. "She chose the easy way. Denial, and to ignore the pain and concentrate on the life on England. It was a road; not the road I would have liked for her, but a road nonetheless, and she was in her right to choose it." he looked at Edmund, his eyes the deepest blue. "And the thing is, Ed, I tried to guide her—I told her how I was coping, how I was coming to accept things, but it didn't do it for her. It wasn't enough. We fought. I'm not proud of myself. I yelled at her, I became frustrated. I was hurt on my own and I couldn't deal with her pain as well. I don't justify myself, but I wasn't thinking properly, not like I do now. But, now is late. I allowed her to drift away. I wasn't there for her when she needed me and I can't be there now, when she's gone through it all. I don't have a right to tell her she made the wrong decision."

Edmund pondered on that for a long while, folding his right leg close to his chest, thoughtful.

"But still" he said at last, looking at Peter again. Against the window his brother looked too pale, too thin. As if he was an image from another world flickering away. Edmund's hand darted to Peter's, as if holding onto him physically would keep him in this realm. "How do you deny the truth?"

"Truth is a relative thing, Ed." Peter smiled gently. "That which was true once might not be so later on."

"My beliefs haven't changed." Ed replied.

"No, but then you didn't go through what Su and I did." Peter sighed. "I prefer it like this—I would never have you go through it, ever. I fell into an iced river, Ed, and when I emerged I did so different. I'm not Peter the Magnificent that you knew in Narnia. I'm a different Peter. And she's not Susan the Gentle" Ed snorted derisively, agreeing to _that_, and Peter gave him a look. "because she, too went into the icy water. Truths that she believed in in Narnia are not truths here in England. In her mind, how can there be an Aslan, if she does not find him? How can someone watch over her, when she does not see him back? Aslan was a truth in Narnia. In England, he's an abstract."

"But you believe in him."

"Yes, Ed, I do." He paused, conflicted, but Edmund understood.

They had gone into the water and they had come out. Peter had continued on in his wet clothes, accepting the weight of the water and growing with it. Susan had thrown the wet clothes away.

Yes, Edmund understood. It was that small difference which made Peter all the more admirable, and Susan all the more disappointing.

"I miss her." Ed said, quietly. "I miss it all. I miss Phillip."

Peter grinned. "Yes, dear, loyal Phillip. I miss him too." he chuckled. "I even miss Caspian."

Ed laughed. "A good boy, he'll become a good man."

"He has already, quite likely. As time goes by in Narnia…"

"Yes, you are right." Ed agreed, inclining his head. "Do you think Susan cared for him?"

"I think we all cared for him. I do not especially think Susan had a particular liking to him, any more than Lucy, you or I did. He was good, but he was a child. He was yet to go through the process of becoming a man."

"Am I a child, then, by your standards?"

Peter grinned. "I know not. But you forever remain my baby brother."

"I will grow taller than you!" Ed protested, sitting up straight.

"Yes. But not yet." Peter teased, ruffling his brother's dark hair.

Edmund allowed himself to fall into his brothers playful banter, through he knew Peter was deliberately trying to cheer him up. It was hard to resist Peter's charm, when he chose to unleash it upon you. And Edmund didn't have the heart. Peter would be concerned, and he loathed the idea of troubling the High King.

He had come to peace with Susan's choice, through his brother's words. He understood. Like Peter, he would accept. He would wait, and be there for her when she fell. What else was there to do?

Nothing.

And so, nothing is what he will do. Nothing, but wait, until she caves under the weight of her grief and returns to them. When she does, he won't be smug, he won't enjoy it—he will be pained, because she is his sister, and so long as she hurts, he hurts.

Within two hours, the train came upon the station Edmund had to get off on. Peter helped him get his bag out of the bag compartment above their head, walked him to the wagon door and held the bag while he climbed down.

Rain was beginning to palter the stations' tin ceiling, and the noise was becoming almost deafening, so they cut their goodbyes short. It didn't matter—they never left each other, no matter the distance.

Edmund stood in the station under the ceiling for a long while, though, watching the train until it disappeared. He missed Peter already. Missed his warm presence, his deep eyes and his graceful, regal stance.

But he didn't fancy Peter as lost. He though, in fact, that Peter had found himself the best among them all. He knew who he had been, he knew who he was, and he knew who he wanted to be. His path was clear before his feet.

Edmund's path was yet to be defined. There was some freedom in that, and Edmund reveled in it, but mostly there was the uncertainty of ignorance.

Still, just because he didn't know the road, he wouldn't falter on his steps. His feet knew the way. He trusted himself—he knew whatever choice he made would be the one he deemed right, and because he believed firmly in his principles, he didn't doubt himself.

He wasn't afraid.

He clung the back over his shoulder, leaning forward a little to balance himself, and went out into the icy rain, heading to the school.

Tomorrow, he would starts school like any other Monday. He would have History, English, Math, Biology after lunch, and then Physical Education. And then he would read and make his homework and laze around with his friends, and so the week would progress. At some point Peter would call him, asking how he thought Lucy was—was he concerned? Had he seen her well? He would soothe his concerns, then call Lucy and make sure.

It was always better to tell Peter once things were over, so he wouldn't rush like a madman from school to her aid.

Something similar happened every week, and this would be no different.

The weekend was over.


End file.
